If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

MATE (GNOME 2 Fork) For The Fedora Desktop?

12-09-2011, 09:40 AM

Phoronix: MATE (GNOME 2 Fork) For The Fedora Desktop?

There's a lively discussion taking place right now between Fedora developers and other contributors that concerns the MATE desktop environment, which is the fork of the GNOME2 desktop. Review requests have begun for MATE packages in Fedora and the question has been raised whether this desktop alternative could be a feature of Fedora 17 or Fedora 18, but not everyone is happy...

Is it just me, or does this project strike anyone else as being very pointless and destined for failure?

Why aren't they just writing a Gnome-2 style panel shell replacement and some configuration utilities that look like the old ones? There are massive improvements in GTK+ 3 and other infrastructure, and holding on to the old libraries and toolkits means that nobody will use this...

Comment

This is a pointless project. Really, who wants Bonobo? ORBit? libgnome*?

If you're not happy with gnome-shell and don't want to use it with extensions then just stick with gnome-panel+metacity.

Perhaps a better project would be to combine all the "best" elements from Gnome 3 into a Gnome 2-like desktop, and support that as an out-of-the-box alternative. That would mean a lot of CM work (more that any coding) but it could probably be quite successful. Supply unhappy users with the best from both worlds.

Comment

It's pretty funny really...
One guy forks gnome2, renames it, & Distros begin to include it in releases as an alternative. I don't know why Distros like Ubuntu didn't fork gnome2 right away, instead of reinventing the wheel (unity...ugh). Linux users want a choice. If I wanted an unconfigurable desktop I'd buy a mac.

It took me about a half an hour to realise Gnome3 is a monumental failure along the lines of Vista. Seriously, Gnome-Tweak-Tool to change the theme? Since when is changing a desktop theme a 'tweak'? I've got more choice in my smartphone.

I hope Mate Desktop succeeds. It will be a real 'community driven' OS, even if it's based on Gnome.

Comment

Frippery is far too superficial. It sets up fake-panels in the "standard" way -- it does NOT generate proper strong panels where you can attach widgets as was possible with gnome-panel. It also doesn't offer support for multi-screen, so you can't put a bottom panel onto each of your screens with a window list applet to represent the contents of THAT screen.

IMO, MATE is a ***really stupid idea***. Gnome-3 maintains some semblance of gnome-panel. I think that the best option would be to enhance the remaining implementation of gnome-panel so that it once again supports all of the missing features.

Gnome-3 **IN ITS CORE** is very good. The enhancements to gtk are useful to keep, for example.

There really are TWO things that gnome-3 needs to make it good;
1) gnome-shell SHOULD NOT depend on MUTTER. Mutter should be optional.
2) gnome-panel should not be damaged/destroyed.

There are glitches with nautilus that have been introduced with gnome-3, such as the lack of a "parent directory" button --> this would be most applicable when you have a TEXT location bar rather than using pure mouse navigation. Another problem is with the REALLY REALLY UGLY APPLE MENUS. I can't stand that. Somebody deserves to be killed for making the configuration menus look like apple.

All of these things are ENHANCEMENTS that should be added into gnome-3, i.e., keep what is good, but KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

What would Ubuntu have benefited from forking Gnome 2? Even if they were to provide Gnome 2 like experience it would make absolutely no sense to base it on Gnome 2. Gnome has hundreds of developers and forking the code means huge amount of added work with little to no benefit.

ILinux users want a choice. If I wanted an unconfigurable desktop I'd buy a mac.

Unity and Gnome Shell are choises. We have a lot of higly configurable window managers and applications for those who want them. Not to mention the whole KDE desktop envrionement. With Unity, Gnome Shell, Gnome Fallback, Mate, Enlightement, Elemenetary, KDE, XFCE, LXDE etc, etc, etc we have more possibilities than ever.

II hope Mate Desktop succeeds. It will be a real 'community driven' OS, even if it's based on Gnome.

Mate is not OS but rather a desktop environment. Configurability has never been a strenght of Gnome and I highly doubt that there's any plans to add more of it to Mate. I assume that many people mistakenly think that things like Gnome Do, Docky, DockBarX, AWM,,Cairo, Compiz, Docklets, Screenlets, Conky etc have been part of Gnome 2 but they are not. You can quite easily set up a standalone Compiz environment with any apps you want and have extremely configurable system.

Comment

Is it just me, or does this project strike anyone else as being very pointless and destined for failure?

Why aren't they just writing a Gnome-2 style panel shell replacement and some configuration utilities that look like the old ones? There are massive improvements in GTK+ 3 and other infrastructure, and holding on to the old libraries and toolkits means that nobody will use this...

It isn't just you. Some people are just too stubborn to try new things and insist on using deprecated software to "prove" their point that the old software is better. Hey, I'm pretty sure somewhere someone is still using Motif because that's what real men use, not those girly pretty widgets of today.